Recently, Professor Shu Longlong from the School of Physics and Materials Science of NCU and his collaborators published their latest research findings online in the top international journal Physical Review Letters, titled "Flexoptophotovoltaic effect and above bandgap photovoltage induced by strain gradients in halide perovskites".
NCU is listed as the first affiliation and corresponding institution.
This paper was selected as an Editor's Suggestion article in the current issue (PRL selects the best articles for Editors’Suggestion, which do no exceed 15% of the articles published). Additionally, it has also received a featured coverage in the Viewpoint section of APS Physics, the official website of the American Physical Society (the Viewpoint section represents the highest recommendation of the journal).Dr. WANG Zhiguo, a full-time postdoctoral researcher at the School of Physics and Materials Science, is the first author of the paper, with Professor SHU Longlong, his supervisor and collaborator, as the corresponding author. Professor Gustau Catalan from the Institute of Advanced Studies of Catalonia, Spain is a co-corresponding author of the paper. Nanchang University is listed as the first affiliation and corresponding institution.
Traditional interface photovoltaic effects typically require the formation of p-n junctions. In addition to the interface photovoltaic effect, there is also a special type of photovoltaic effect originating from lattice polarization, known as the bulk photovoltaic effect. This effect usually occurs in non-centrosymmetric material systems, such as ferroelectric photovoltaics. The flexoelectric effect, a novel electromechanical coupling phenomenon induced by gradient strain, has emerged in the field of functional materials in recent years. It possesses advantages such as being unconstrained by material symmetry and exhibiting small size effects. A research team from Nanchang University systematically studied various materials with cubic symmetry and for the first time experimentally verified and quantified a brand-new bulk photovoltaic effect solely induced by the flexoelectric effect (flexo-photovoltaic effect) at a macroscopic scale. Meanwhile, at the micrometer scale, the flexoelectric photovoltaic effect can be utilized to achieve photo-voltages beyond the material bandgap. This research suggests that the strain gradient-based flexoelectric photovoltaic effect holds great potential as a novel technological pathway for significantly enhancing the photovoltaic performance of photovoltaic materials.
Professor Shu Longlong was the successful candidate of the National Youth Talent Program in 2023. He has presided over six national-level projects and published over 30 papers as the corresponding author in prestigious journals such as Nature Materials and PRL. His papers have been cited more than 2000 times by SCI papers, with some papers demonstrating significant international impact in the field of flexoelectricity.
